A Look Back

Kleindeutschland to Levittown

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William Levitt and Sons built more houses in East Meadow than any other single developer. Eleven sections were planned in 1950 in a German-American farming community with heavy marriage ties, traditionally associated with nearby Hicksville. It seems that all the boys literally married the girls next door. Tracing family histories within this community is especially confusing because multiple generations of both boys and girls used their parents’ first names. Many of these farmers joined a mutual aid society called des Freundschaftlichen Wohlthätigkeits-Verein, and the local branch met at Charles Kiestling’s residence.

  • Levittown Section 11 (between Twig Lane and Levittown Parkway) was built on the former Henry and Sophia Bartels property, later owned by their children Henry and Frederick. The elder Henry moved to the United States from Germany in 1855 and spent three years fighting in the American Civil War. Frederick lived on Newbridge Road his entire life.
  • Section 16 (“C” encircled by Cypress Lane) is at the northeast corner of Carman and Stewart avenues. Most of this section was farmed by the Bremen-born Hohorst Family – Diedrich and Anna and then their son Henry, who married Louisa Rowehl of the Bellmore Road German farming community. The Rosche and Foley families also had tracts there, and Daniel Hoeffner, older brother of hotelier Andrew, farmed at the edge of town. Daniel and Anna’s daughter Eugenia married Henry Kollmer (Section 20).
  • Section 17 (“C” encircled by Choir Lane) is directly opposite, on the northwest corner, previously owned by the Salerno Family.
  • Section 18 (“C” encircled by Cabot Lane) is just south of Section 16, across Stewart Avenue and extending over the Town of Oyster Bay line into Hicksville. The land was farmed by August (Jr.) and Margaret Diemicke, whose multiple children married into the Kollmer family (Section 20). Previously, it had been farmed by Ernest Hartmann and his son Frederick, whose sister Sophia married Henry Bartels (Section 11).
  • Section 19 (“F” built around Friends Lane) lies between Carman Avenue and the Wantagh State Parkway. Three related households (Rottkamp and Finn) lived there in the 20th century on farms that had previously been in the Laxeng, Heckinger, Wellinghousen, Joseph Berghold, Baker, Henry Bartel, and Gasser families. John Gasser, German immigrant and patriarch of that family, lived on various properties at the northeast corner of Carman Avenue and Old Westbury Road with his wife Mary Dauch and their six children. Gasser was the school district’s tax collector at the turn of the century. His son and grandson, both named John Gasser, all grew up in the same location. Mary Dauch’s father, Nicholas, arrived from Germany in 1845 and settled on Old Westbury Road. Thomas (Section 20) was Mary’s brother.
  • Section 20 (“H” south of Hearth Lane) lies directly south of Section 19, with an extension of Friends Lane. Thomas and Barbara Dauch and son Adam farmed this land, followed by Henry and Mary Kollmer. Three of their children married Diemicke siblings (Section 18): Frank married Margaret, Catherine married Adam, Peter married Mary. Their daughter Anna married William Schneider (son of David, who farmed just north of Section 19) and set up their home next door on the old Henry Schriefer farm. At the corner of Old Westbury Road and Carman Avenue lived John and Wilhelmina Hogrefe, whose daughter Catherine married Henry and Mary’s son John Kollmer. Daniel Hoeffner’s daughter Eugenia (Section 16) married Henry Kollmer.
  • Section 21 (“G” encircled by Greenbelt Lane) lies just across the Wantagh State Parkway, west of Newbridge Road on grounds of the longstanding Adolph and Angelina Pasker estate and New Bridge Hotel. Pasker was one of the earliest German immigrants to come to the New Bridge section. After the Civil War, he was a dairy farmer alongside innkeeper Charles Kiestling. The railroad kept the Hicksville-area milk supply flowing to New York City until prices dropped such that residents could no longer demand enough to be profitable in the 1890s. Pasker became involved with Democratic politics. Gottlieb and Jane Metzger and Jacob Gaenger farmed there before it was sold.
  • Section 22 (“L”) sits at the southwest corner of Stewart Avenue and Carman Avenue.
  • Section 23 (“M”) is situated just south of Section 22’s Melody Lane and north of Salisbury Park Drive.
  • Section 24 (“P” and part of “M”) is just west of Section 23, around Palm Lane.
  • Section 25 (“P” near Pilgrim Lane) lies just west of Section 24 at the intersection of Salisbury Park Drive and Stewart Avenue.

Sections 17 and 22-25 had been part of the vast Hempstead Plains Company holdings, following the 19th century sale of the plains to Alexander Turney Stewart. The posh Meadow Brook Hunt Club, located just west of Merrick Avenue at Stewart Avenue, ran its regular hunts in this section of East Meadow after its 1881 inception.

As the plains were developed into suburbia and high society estates were built in the neighborhood, the Meadow Brook Hunt Club shifted its focus to horse racing, then polo, and finally golf. When property was taken by the state for the Meadowbrook Parkway extension in 1954, the club moved its headquarters to Jericho. Some of the grounds have been incorporated into Nassau Community College. A revolutionary-era road to Hicksville ran from Uniondale through the hunt at this location; Old Westbury Road ran northwest through the properties to Old Country Road through the 1920s but now ends at Carman Avenue.

Sections 22 through 25 surround Bowling Green School, which was set aside by Levitt as a school site. Section 22-23 land was acquired from the Rottkamp Family, whose farm homes still stand on Carman Avenue. The Rottkamps were one of the largest families on Long Island; there are over 2,000 descendants of Bernard Rottkamp and Caroline Engel, who wed in New York City in 1851. The family members who remained farmers, children of Henry and Theresa Wulforst Rottkamp, migrated from Elmont to East Meadow in the 1920s. Though they only spent about 25 years living in East Meadow, the Rottkamps transformed Carman Avenue: the 1930 Federal Census lists seven households just with the name Rottkamp living one after another, growing vegetables. A sister, Mary Teresa Rottkamp, lived across the street with her husband John Finn. The character of New Road, as it was also known, and New Bridge as a German-American farming enclave came to a screeching halt in 1950 as the Rottkamps, Schneiders, Gassers, and their neighbors sold off farms en masse to Levitt.

© Scott Eckers

Dr. Scott Eckers is the author of East Meadow (in Arcadia Publishing's Images of America series). He is a trustee on the East Meadow Board of Education and serves as a school administrator. He is also an entertainer and recording artist.